A bar mitzvah is a 13-year-old Jewish boy considered an adult in terms of moral and religious duties. Bar mitzvah also is the name of the marking of the passage.

Baseball didn’t interfere with bar mitzvah studies the way football did, and didn’t matter how big Mitchell was — he was allowed to play.

Mitchell was a pitcher and first baseman. His favorite sports team was the San Francisco Giants, tracing to the fact his father had grown up in Giants country, in Santa Rosa.

Mitchell wasn’t a great hitter, but he could bring it from the mound. His father and his big brother brought him along.

“I never tried to see how fast I was on a radar gun,” he said. “That’s where guys get hurt, trying to overthrow. I avoided throwing curveballs until high school. I avoided lifting weights ... my dad didn’t want me to throw off my shoulder.”

Geoffrey Schwartz became an all-league pitcher at Palisades Charter High School. Neither of the boys began playing football until they were freshmen there.

Geoffrey, 6-foot-6, began to take off in the new sport as a junior. He played for the Oregon Ducks. He is entering his fifth year in the NFL. He still refers to the baseball Giants as “we.”

Mitchell was happy being a baseball player when he hit high school, a freshman when his brother was a senior. He was nudged into football.

“I went out for football as a quarterback,” Mitchell said. “There’s a little back story dealing with that.”

His father shared the “back story.”

“Mitchell wasn’t inclined to play football,” Lee Schwartz said. “It took a little bit of hoodwinking to get him to play.”

Lee asked the Palisades coach if he would let Mitchell play quarterback. The coach went along with it, understanding the goal was to steer Mitchell where the biggest kid on the team usually lands.

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“I was only a quarterback for a couple of weeks,” Mitchell recalled. “I found the line to be a lot more fun than playing quarterback.

“You’re out there in front. You get to be aggressive. You get to go attack some guys. You get to be a lot more physical.”

Mitchell quickly became an important football player at Palisades, but he stuck with baseball through his junior year.

At one point during his football career at Cal, where he was a four-year starter at offensive tackle, he established an unusual pre-game ritual.

When he first hit the field during pre-game warmups, he would grab a football and play catch. He would close the ritual by trying to throw a football to the center of the crossbar, first from 40 yards, then 50 ... then 60.

One time, Rick Neuheisel, then the head coach at rival UCLA, gave him a throwing tip. Mitchell tried it, and it worked.

Cal has had some name quarterbacks, including ex-Brown Trent Dilfer and reigning NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers. Head coach Jeff Tedford is known for his work with quarterbacks.

Mitchell Schwartz comes to the Browns from a system that placed a premium on pass-blocking.

Tedford has called Schwartz one of the brightest players he has coached.

“The Browns are getting a guy who is very passionate about the game and will be a very solid player for them,” Tedford said via calbears.com. “He’s very smart and very reliable.”

Those who have met Schwartz in Berea, where he is working toward the starting right tackle job, have found him to be down to earth.

Coaches like his attention to detail and serious approach to mastering the playbook. Coming out of Palisades Charter, Schwartz was an A student who scored 29 on his first crack at the ACT Test, re-took it, and upped the mark to 32.

The high school is in Pacific Palisades, home of many movie stars and celebrities. West Los Angeles is nearby.